


Call Me Maybe (Except You, Shindou, Seriously, Just Stop Already)

by very



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: 5 Things, M/M, Phone Calls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:38:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/very/pseuds/very
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five reasons Yashiro won't answer Hikaru's phone calls any more</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call Me Maybe (Except You, Shindou, Seriously, Just Stop Already)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aoigensou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoigensou/gifts).



> Thanks to aoigensou for the Let's Five prompt, and to Qem for suggesting the only possible title (which I promptly mutilated <3)

Shindou's a pretty awesome dude, Kiyoharu's decided. Shindou's the only other person he knows who dares: he'll play a redonk hand like second-hand tengen or start a ko war only seventeen hands in just so he can see what will happen. Shindou never hesitates to take the interesting risks, to follow the untrodden path, and best of all Shindou _owns_ it, is focused and committed and determined to see things through instead of swaddling himself in caveats and excuses just in case his gambles don't pay off.

It's for that reason, Kiyoharu figures, that they do pay off. Not all the time, as Shindou's suffered some spectacular and public failures, but they're never boring. There's always something in his games worth picking apart and analyzing, worth replaying a dozen times, a hundred times, to see if Kiyoharu can't find the secret Shindou's missed.

And the frustrating thing, the thing that drives Kiyoharu crazy, is he often can't. It's hard enough to make connections between Shindou's strategies at the best of times, and sometimes it feels like Shindou's playing thirty hands into the future and it's only chance or the caprices of the God of Go that determines whether or not the futures Shindou sees come to pass.

There are other players who are stronger than Shindou like Touya Akira, whose play has a sense of inescapable inevitability as unstoppable as the train tearing towards you when you're tied to the tracks, but Shindou is undoubtedly the most brilliant. Kiyoharu'd thought to eye him as a rival but he makes an even better friend, which is why he didn't think twice about programming his number into Shindou's phone when Shindou asked.

Now he wishes he'd known better.

### 1.

Shindou always, every week, without fail, calls him thirty minutes into Yoshikawa-sensei's study session. The first time had caught Kiyoharu by surprise: his ringer, which Shindou had insisted on setting himself, started blasting out the current Naruto opening theme and it had been so startling that Kiyoharu had to fumble with his jean pocket for ten seconds that felt like ten minutes as he tried to pull the vibrating, ringing abomination out of its snug home. He'd ended up having to get to his feet and had accidentally kicked over the white goke, as if things weren't bad enough, and Tsusaka'd laughed at him the whole time as Kiyoharu'd stumbled his way out of the room.

That was the first time. He hadn't expected there to be a second time, since he very clearly and politely explained to Shindou about his weekly study session, but there is. And a third.

On the fourth time Kiyoharu's at least remembered to turn his ringer off. The vibration's hum is still embarrassingly loud, at least to his own ears, but he's able to hit the dismiss button with it still in his pocket and it's not that big a deal.

On the fifth time it happens, Kiyoharu stills his vibrating phone by hitting the dismiss button. But that only buys him a few seconds before it starts buzzing again. He dismisses it again but then it starts buzzing _again_ , and it's kind of embarrassing to be almost fondling his pocket like he's got some kind of creepy complex, and then Yoshikawa-sensei very kindly asks him if he needs to take his phone call. He really, really doesn't, but he can tell he's being a disturbance to everyone so he excuses himself to go take Shindou's Extremely Important Phone Call out in the hall.

“Hey, 'sup?” Shindou asks. “So look, I was thinking about how else Ishibashi-sensei could have handled Kurata-sensei getting all up in his grill in their battle over the bottom right corner, and—”

“Dude,” Kiyoharu interrupts him before Shindou can work up a full head of steam. “I've told you this a million times, Tuesdays from three-thirty to five are verboten. I don't call you when you're at Serizawa-sensei's, do I?”

“Yeah, well, not like you call that much anyway,” Shindou shoots back, heaving an exasperated sigh that blows up way too loud with static in Kiyoharu's ear.

“Not like I need to call when you call me all the time,” Kiyoharu points out.

“Fine,” Shindou says. “I won't call. I'll never call you again,” he threatens, but Kiyoharu's not worried because Shindou's got the memory of a goldfish if it doesn't directly involve go.

“Look, just call me after. I'll be home by like six. Or I'll call you, whatever,” Kiyoharu says, remembering Shindou's complaint.

“Can't; I do that thing at the community centre until nine; this is like the only free time I have before Thursdays,” Shindou says.

“What thing at the community centre?” Kiyoharu asks, since he's pretty sure this is the first time he's heard of such a thing.

“The thing with Shirakawa-sensei,” Shindou says, exasperated. “Okay, so are you busy or what?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty much extremely busy right now,” he says, catching himself before he starts to pace about the hall. “Just text me; I'll get back to you when I can and then you get back to me when you can and then it's all good.”

“Okay, yeah, that works out pretty good actually; bye!” Shindou says, and he hangs up immediately.

Well, Kiyoharu reflects, that was surprisingly easy.

Problem dispatched, he heads back into the study room. Yoshikawa-sensei acknowledges him with a nod, and Kiyoharu manages to settle back down on his zabuton and has almost reacclimated himself to the game before his phone vibrates in his pocket—but just once, just for a moment.

About ten seconds later, it happens again. And about twenty seconds after that. At this point he can't help but count: twenty-two seconds. Then eleven. Then forty-five. Then twenty. Then fifteen. Then thirty-two. Then he's counted out for over a minute when Yoshikawa asks him what he'd suggest in this situation.

“What where?” Kiyoharu asks before he can think better of it, and as Tsusaka fails to stifle his snort Kiyoharu begins to deeply, deeply regret that he ever gave his number to Shindou Hikaru.

### 2.

Shindou always calls him literally the very same evening Kiyoharu's played a recorded game, and he always wants to rub Kiyoharu's choices in his face.

“So I was thinking instead of doing the katatsuki you could've done the degiri at 6-12, which would have made her build upwards,” Shindou says.

“I had to do the katatsuki; I was too vulnerable. If I'd done the degiri I would have lost the corner,” Kiyoharu says.

“But you did lose the corner,” Shindou points out, Captain of the obvious.

“Yeah, but it's not like I knew it at the time,” Kiyoharu shoots back, resisting the urge to grind his teeth together.

“You lost the corner like twenty moves ago,” Shindou says.

He absolutely has to call him out on that one “Bullshit!” he says. “I still could have turned it around; what about if I'd gone for the ko?”

“Nah, that'd be worse; I already worked that out and that would've given her another three and a half in there,” Shindou says.

“When? When did you work it out? When did you have time? How do you even know what the game looks like? How do you even get these? Do they get Weekly Go a week in the future out there in Tokyo or what?” Kiyoharu asks, exasperated.

“Pfft, they won't even run this one,” Shindou says dismissively, which wow, Shindou doesn't have to be nearly this much of a dick about it. “I'm friends with Toosaka-san; she faxes me a copy of your games.”

Kiyoharu pictures the squat, round, stern-faced matron of the archive and tries to imagine her and Shindou holding any kind of conversation that didn't end with her banishing him from the office after thirty seconds, and utterly fails. “Toosaka-san? How do you even know her?” he asks.

“When I was at your Ki-in for the second Shinjin-Ou match I ended up poking around and she helped me find a bunch of stuff and I mentioned we were friends and that it was a total pain trying to get copies of your games and she said she could help me out so that was totally awesome,” Shindou explains.

“So you just... asked her to send you my games, and she does?” Kiyoharu asks, wanting to get this straight.

“Oh yeah, she said it wasn’t any problem at all,” Shindou says, as if this is something that just happens.

“And that’s—Toosaka-san? She does?” he asks.

“Yeah, she’s super nice,” Shindou enthuses and yes, it’s official, Shindou doesn’t live on the same planet as everyone else, he lives on Shindouworld and of course this is why nothing he does ever makes sense.

“Okay...” Kiyoharu says slowly. “Look, I just got home like two hours ago, I just finished dinner half an hour ago, and I would really, really like to have a nap. Then I will call you back and you can continue to tell me just how much I suck.”

“What? No! Dude, you were _amazing_ today; I was reading a bunch of Onohama’s kifu and she is crazy brutal; did you know you’re the only person under 5-dan she hasn’t made resign in like almost two years? She is a _demon_ , and I’m so glad she’s going up against Ogata-sensei in her next match in the Ouza prelims so hopefully he’ll knock her out so I don’t have to chance facing her when I get there next year,” Shindou says, which really? In two years? Kiyoharu had lost by six and a half, which he’d thought was pretty crap at the time, but hey, at least he made it all the way through yose with his dignity still intact.

“But yeah, go nap or whatever and call me back, because we have got to get to your right side. I have no idea what you were even thinking; you basically had that on lock before she started gettin’ all sassy so you have got to tell me exactly and in great detail exactly what the plan was because I cannot even _fathom_ what was going on in your head and—” Shindou blathers on, and it doesn’t appear he’s going to approach a stop any time soon.

“I’m hanging up,” Kiyoharu interrupts him, clicking the dismiss button before tossing his cell on his desk and flopping down on his bed.

He has only time enough to close his eyes and think about trying to get to sleep before his cellphone starts to vibrate. And vibrate. And vibrate.

Then it falls off the desk and hits the floor. And vibrates some more.

Kiyoharu takes a deep breath and counts to ten, and when he exhales slowly he contemplates what life would be like if he hadn’t given his phone number to Shindou and how peaceful such an existence would be.

### 3.

When Kiyoharu’s phone bill is suddenly over budget one month by almost six thousand yen he sits down and adds up all of his call counts and makes a horrifying discovery: of the time he spends on the phone, over seventy percent of it is with Shindou. Seventy four point three percent, if his calculator is to be believed.

He doesn’t. So he runs the numbers again, and in the process discovers he missed the third sheet somehow.

Correction: eighty five point nine percent of the time he spends on the phone is with Shindou.

Then he looks at his texts.

Midway through, his phone rings. He doesn’t need to look at the display to know who it is.

Kiyoharu’d never been quite solid on what feeling “rue” was supposed to indicate, and then he thinks back to his cheerful naïveté the day he gave Shindou his number and oh, there it is; so that’s what that is.

### 4.

It’s Kiyoharu’s fault. He knew better. He _knew_ better, could feel that whisper slithering and coiling around inside his brain all day as Shindou dragged him around Tokyo. They went to the Ki-in where they’d spent almost two hours poring over dusty stacks of kifu in the kifu room; to Shindou’s favourite hole-in-the-wall ramen shop where the chef had only needed to ask for Kiyoharu’s order, not Shindou’s; to Shindou’s salon where literally every single person there smiled and nodded and warmly recognized him by reputation the moment Shindou introduced him by name; to Shindou’s friend’s Waya’s place where they had an epic study session inside a tiny one room studio crammed full with people which had at some point turned into an evening with the goban shoved against the wall and a bunch of beer that had appeared out of thin air and loud music that, instead of pissing off the neighbours, attracted them over along with a couple of bottles of their sake.

Shindou’d been by his side the whole day and instead of being exhausted, as Kiyoharu is used to feeling when Tsusaka wants to make a day of it, he’s energized. Everything’s brighter, sharper, more funny, more clever; he has never been with a better group of people, never been at a better party, and it’s only when Shindou slips off to go grab them new beers that he notices that it’s gotten almost unbearably crowded and loud and swelteringly hot and that the apartment smells just a tiny bit like BO.

When Shindou returns with their beers and Kiyoharu thanks him, he notices for the first time that he has to literally shout to hear himself over the music.

“No problem!” Shindou shouts back, and clinks their bottles together before bringing his to his lips. Kiyoharu watches how Shindou’s cheekbones seem to sharpen as he purses his lips to drink, how his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, catches sight of the tiny bead of sweat that runs down Shindou’s temple, and he won’t listen to his brain debate over whether it’s a good or bad decision before he’s already decided.

“Hey,” he says, catching Shindou’s eye as he lowers the bottle. “Wanna head outside for a sec? I’m kind of dyin’.”

“Yeah!” Shindou agrees. “It’s hot as balls in here, right?”

Kiyoharu’s are pretty uncomfortably stuck to his leg at the moment so yeah, Shindou, thanks for the reminder.

“C’mon,” Shindou says, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him through the mass of people to the door. Shindou’s violently yellow Nikes stand out immediately but Kiyoharu has to dig through a pile of black shoes before he finds his own sneakers, but then he does and they’re free to escape to the deck outside.

“Ahh!” Shindou says, leaning up on his tiptoes and stretching his arms out wide in order to bask in the cool night air. “So much better out here, right?”

“Way, way better,” Kiyoharu agrees, and when Shindou turns to smile at him, he can’t help but smile back.

“Hey, so um,” Shindou starts, then turns his head to take a swig of his drink. “If we wanna sit down somewhere, there’s a park on the other side of Waya’s building,” he says, kicking his toe aimlessly at the ground.

Kiyoharu has to swallow twice before his mouth is in any shape to talk. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, yeah, let’s.”

Together they walk down the three storeys to the ground, and then Shindou leads them around the back past the garbage and recycling dumpsters to—well, it’s kind of a park. There’s a bench and a swingset with two child-size swings, both of which have been looped around the top beam several times and then tangled together, and the world’s tiniest, rustiest seesaw. There’s also a small sandpit, but after he notices the crushed beer cans inside, he tries not to look too closely at it in case he sees anything more unsavory.

“Yeah, I know, the park sucks,” Shindou says, sounding almost embarrassed. “Shut up and just sit down,” he says, pointing at the bench.

Kiyoharu holds up his hands in a gesture of appeasement, at least as well as he can with his beer still in one hand. “Didn’t say anything,” he says, but sits down.

“Yeah, well, you were thinking it so hard I could hear you from here, so there,” Shindou says. He sits down next to Kiyoharu, their inside knees knocking together, but instead of shifting over Shindou stays right where he is. Kiyoharu doesn’t move either, and then they’re sitting with their knees touching and Kiyoharu’s feeling just as sweaty and hot as he did inside the apartment crammed to the rafters with people as he does now with just the two of them alone together.

“Hey,” Shindou says, but he doesn’t bother turning to look at him and instead just stares straight ahead. “So is—so you’re having fun, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Kiyoharu says, and then he realises why Shindou’s asking so he hurries to explain himself. “It was just hot in there; we can head back in a minute or two.”

“I meant like today. Like earlier. Like—” Shindou says, scuffing his toe in the woodchips at their feet. “Like, it wasn’t a waste or anything. I mean, I know you’ve got a game the day after tomorrow so making you travel tomorrow means that you have to like dedicate your whole evening to recovering from it so you probably would have preferred to just go home yesterday after the seminar, and...” he trails off.

“It was great,” Kiyoharu says, and Shindou dips his head. “It was really great. It was a good suggestion. I’m glad you suggested it. Thanks for showing me around today.”

“Awesome,” Shindou says, and even though he’s staring at the ground his mouth curves up into a smile.

Seconds pass as they sit without speaking, knees touching; Shindou rolls his half-filled bottle between his hands first forwards, then backwards, then forwards again, and their knees are still touching.

“You should do it again,” Shindou blurts out all at once. “Visit. Hang out. Do stuff. I mean, I see you like five times a year which is pretty bullshit; come on,” he says, and he leans forward to set his bottle down on the ground.

Kiyoharu’s hand and the bottle in it are both sweating; he takes one last swig, then sets his bottle on the ground as well. “Yeah,” he says, digging the bottle into the woodchips a little bit so it doesn’t fall over. “Yeah, I gotta agree, it is pretty bullshit,” he agrees, setting his palms flat on his thighs.

“Right?” Hikaru says. “Because we totally have an amazing time when we hang out. It’s like—it’s awesome.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoharu says again, echoing himself. “Yeah, it’s awesome,” he says, and his throat is tight and his voice is hoarse and there’s no way Shindou can’t tell.

“Because we’re awesome, right? You and me, we’re awesome. Us. Together. Awesome,” Shindou says.

Kiyoharu’s heart is pounding impossibly fast; Shindou must be able to hear it, he has to be able to hear it. There’s a stone in his throat that must be the size of his fist and there’s no way he could possibly talk around it even if he knew the right words to say so instead he just nudges his knee a little harder against Shindou’s. Shindou’s foot slides against his and now more than just their knees are touching, their calves are touching, and Shindou’s staying like that, he’s not moving away, he’s doing it on purpose, and this isn’t all just inside Kiyoharu’s head.

“Yashiro,” Shindou says, raising his head, and then at last he turns to face him. “I-if I—hey, um, so like if—” he starts, breaking off when his voice catches in his throat.

Then Shindou straightens. “Screw it,” Shindou says decisively, and then leans in and presses his mouth to Kiyoharu’s.

The kiss is chaste for all of two seconds before Kiyoharu opens his mouth to Shindou and then Shindou’s tongue is in his mouth and then Kiyoharu’s tonguing him back and Shindou’s hands are scrabbling at his chest and clutching at his shirt and they’re kissing, he’s kissing Shindou, he’s been trying all day not to think about it but he’s doing it now, he’s kissing him, and Shindou is kissing him back.

He fists a hand in Shindou’s hair, feeling the crunch of his hair gel under his fingers; he wraps an arm around Shindou’s waist, feeling him shimmy forward even closer; he kisses his mouth over and over again, licking with his tongue, biting with his teeth, and over the thrumming of his heart he can hear the wet sounds of their kiss, hear the desperation in their panted breaths, and then Shindou gives a faint gasp that is unmistakably a whimper and Kiyoharu’s cock twitches almost painfully against his thigh as it begins to take a keen interest in the proceedings.

Kiyoharu breaks their kiss before he’s no longer capable of restraint. “Shindou,” he breathes and he’s giddy, he’s delirious, he’s absolutely intoxicated with him, and in about ten seconds he’s gonna break down and see if Shindou wants to call a cab and head back to his hotel with him.

“Wow,” Shindou says, letting go of Kiyoharu’s shirt at last to let his hands slide down Kiyoharu’s torso to settle at his waist. “Wow, wow. That was great. Um, wow. Okay, so, um, like,” Shindou says, turning his head as he coughs to clear his throat. Then he just stays like that unmoving, not saying anything, and when Kiyoharu turns his look he sees him.

Touya Akira is staring at them from about thirty feet away. Lit by streetlamps from behind, his face can’t be seen, but his silhouette is unmistakable.

“U-um,” Shindou says, shoulders heaving as he breathes at last, and he pulls his hands away from Kiyoharu and sets them on his own thighs. “So, uh, hi,” he says, raising his voice for Touya’s benefit.

Kiyoharu can see it before it happens, can read it in the line of Touya’s shoulders: He says absolutely nothing, and then he turns and walks away.

“Whoa,” Shindou says. “That was super awkward. His timing could have been about a million times better,” he says, about which Kiyoharu is in complete agreement.

“Wait,” Shindou says. “Where’s he going? He’s totally headed in the wrong direction, and he doesn’t even have his jacket. He’s coming back, right?” he asks, turning to watch Touya leave, their legs and knees breaking contact at last. “Right? I mean yeah, okay, two dudes is kind of gross—no offence, I don’t mean it like that, but you know what I mean, he probably thinks—he’s actually leaving, isn’t he? He’s just leaving. He’s just totally taking off,” Shindou narrates.

Right now the status of Touya Akira is about the least interesting thing in the world to Kiyoharu, but it seems like Shindou’s gonna go on and on about it like a broken record until he gets a response. “Yep,” Kiyoharu says. “Looks like.”

“Huh,” Shindou says, and then come the words Kiyoharu’s been dreading: “Maybe I should go after him.”

Maybe, Kiyoharu thinks but has just enough self-control not to say, you should forget about Touya throwing some sort of immature fit and focus on the guy you just kissed.

“Maybe you should just let him deal with whatever he has to deal with,” Kiyoharu says, hoping he doesn’t sound as annoyed as he feels.

“Oh man, that’s a terrible idea; he’ll stew for a week and then things’ll be super weird for like a month,” Shindou says, and then gets to his feet. “Okay, I will be right back, like, not even five minutes, I’m just gonna see what his deal is and then I will be right back, so don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back. I won’t—oh shit, he’s turning the corner, okay, hold on, I’ll be right back,” Shindou says, turning around to clap his hands together to beg for Kiyoharu’s indulgence before whirling back around and tearing off after Touya at a run.

“Touya!” Shindou shouts, his overshirt flapping behind him. “Touya, hold on a sec!”

It doesn’t take Shindou long to reach the corner and then he too is gone and somehow Kiyoharu’s gone from making out with the boy he’s been absolutely not crushing on for months to sitting completely alone in a sketchy park in the dark.

Well. At least he has beer.

He downs the rest of his in a single pull. Then he spends about thirty seconds pretending to debate the ethics of it before he gives in and polishes off Shindou’s too.

Kiyoharu waits five minutes. He’s not really surprised when Shindou doesn’t return by then, given that it takes more than five minutes to knock sense into anybody, but when ten minutes goes by with no sign of him, it’s a little annoying.

The really annoying thing, Kiyoharu will admit, is that Shindou left at all. Let Touya deal with his horror at discovering that gay people exist, or whatever his problem is. If he were Shindou, there wouldn’t have been any debate over which issue was more pressing: rival/friend/whatever it is that Touya is throwing a tantrum, or totally hot guy waiting to make out with you?

Well, pretty hot. Sort of hot. Hot-ish. Guy waiting to make out with you, at least.

He waits ten minutes.

And the thing with Touya is that it’s complete crap for him to turn on Shindou like this. Well, Kiyoharu too, but he’s not extra special rival buddies with Touya the way Shindou is. You’d think that if Shindou and Touya were so tight that Touya’s first reaction to seeing Shindou kissing another dude wouldn’t be to literally walk off in disgust; Kiyoharu would have thought that his connection to Shindou would have bought at least some measure of understanding.

Fifteen minutes.

It doesn’t even make sense.

Twenty minutes.

And then it clicks, and it does make sense why Touya had a meltdown at the sight of Shindou kissing someone.

Thirty minutes.

Kiyoharu’s starting to wonder what kind of conversation could take half an hour. Then he decides he probably shouldn’t.

Forty minutes after Shindou left, Kiyoharu realises that Shindou isn’t coming back, and he pulls out his cellphone and calls for a taxi.

His phone doesn’t ring. And if he’s honest with himself, he never really expected it to.

When he gets to the hotel he strips down for a shower he runs until his fingers have turned to prunes, then settles down to watch late-night TV until his brain turns to jelly and he can’t think anymore.

Just as he’s finally starting to fall asleep, his phone bursts into violent vibration on the bedside table.

He picks up the phone, and for a moment he considers his options.

Then he powers it off and sets it back down.

* * *

When Kiyoharu wakes up, he has twelve missed calls, all five voicemails that his plan permits, and twenty-six text messages.

He reads the messages:

_‘that took way longer than I thought it would I’m so so sorry I can’t believe that took so long but I hope you got back to your hotel okay’_

_‘hey are you awake? I know its super late’_

_‘Im really sorry, I know I took forever’_

_‘it was super terrible and I dont even know how to sum it up for a text but things were really REALLY TERRIBLE’_

_‘and Im so exhausted’_

_‘but I know youre exhausted too’_

_‘I know I made you wait forever Im super sorry’_

_‘Im really, really sorry’_

_‘when you get up did you wanna call me or something?’_

_‘dont worry if its late or early or whatever just go ahead and call Ill pick up okay’_

_‘are we okay’_

_‘Im so sorry I bailed on you like that’_

_‘this was totally my fault’_

_‘are we going to talk about it?’_

_‘the kissing thing’_

_‘we dont have to talk about it’_

_‘Im kind of freaking out here’_

_‘was it weird’_

_‘are we weird’_

_‘just call me back ok’_

_‘or you can text’_

_‘texting is totally ok’_

_‘I just need to make sure youre alive and not dead’_

_‘just let me know okaay’_

_‘we don’t have to talk about the other stuff’_

_‘hey?’_

He deletes the voicemails without listening to them, and then turns his phone back off.

* * *

The train ride back to Osaka passes by in a daze. Sometimes Kiyoharu stares out the window. At some point he tries to nap, but he’s too wired on cheap coffee and a sugary breakfast bun to do more than sit with his eyes closed. Finally he pulls out the book of theory he started reading on the trip east, but when the train pulls into his station he realises he hasn’t read a single word.

Kiyoharu goes home, and then, with the door locked behind him and all of his problems safely on the other side, he staggers over to his couch, sags down upon it, and passes out.

* * *

The clatter wakes him up.

He bolts upright, rubbing his eyes to try and clear them, but his major problem is that it’s nearly pitch black, the only light coming from the faint glow of the LCD screen on the front of his phone as it vibrates across the floor.

He leans over and reaches for his phone before he can think better of it, but with it buzzing in his hand he does have a moment to think.

He doesn’t think better of it. Instead he draws a long, even breath, then flips open his handset.

“Hello,” Kiyoharu says.

“Oh thank God hi,” Shindou blurts out all at once. “Hi! Hi! Hey, it’s me,” he says unnecessarily.

“Yeah, I know,” Kiyoharu says.

“Oh,” Shindou says. “Yeah. Well, um. Did you get my messages?”

“I’ve been busy,” Kiyoharu says instead.

“Oh,” Shindou says again. “I mean yeah, of course, you had to travel and all that. So, um...” he trails off before sucking in a sharp breath. “So stop me whenever because otherwise I’m just gonna say everything; I am so super, super, _super_ sorry about last night; I totally did not mean to leave you hanging like that and if I could take it back I would in an instant and I was a huge dick and I’m really, really, really sorry,” Shindou says all in one breath.

“Thanks,” Kiyoharu says.

“Because I really, really wish I’d just let him go because I really didn’t—I mean, holy crap, things were really—like, things did not go—it was bad,” Shindou says, finally. “It was bad. It was really not good. It was bad.”

Time to cut to the chase. “Did you kiss him?” Kiyoharu asks, because that’s the only question that matters.

“Did he call you?” Shindou asks, voice suddenly strangled, which means yes. Shindou did. Shindou kissed Touya, of course he did, because Touya’s his rival/boyfriend/whatever now and Shindou never came back.

“No,” Kiyoharu says flatly.

“Because it wasn’t like that at _all_ , and—wait, he didn’t? Who told you? Oh my God, was it Waya? Does Waya know?” Shindou asks, panicked.

“I guessed. Not really long-shot odds,” Kiyoharu says. “Look, today was a really long day and I have a game tomorrow, so if that’s all you wanted to say—” he starts, but Shindou cuts him off.

“I missed you,” Shindou blurts out. “I was dealing with Touya—with his feelings, or whatever, and he was crying, and then I was crying, and—oh crap, don’t ever tell him I told you he was crying; he’ll kill me,” Shindou says, though right now that sounds like a tidy way to solve the two biggest problems in Kiyoharu’s life. “But it just—I mean, it was probably the right call to go after him and sort things out but the whole time I was with him I just wanted to go back to you and go back and finish our day where we got to go do fun stuff and hang out for longer than five hours at a job every blue moon, because—because you kissed me back, right? I was freaking out all day if I should just confess to you or whatever and I was so paranoid it was all in my head but you kissed me back,” Shindou says, sucking in a sharp breath.

Kiyoharu wets his lip. “This is—this is not a good conversation to have,” he says at last. “There’s no point. There’s literally no point. Even if something was going to happen last night, it didn’t happen, and we’re probably not even going to see each other for another three months, more than that depending on how prelims go,” he says carefully.

“But something could have happened, right?” Shindou says, voice bright as he leaps upon the possibility. “If I’d stayed. Something could have happened. I’m into you, and you’re into me, and something could have happened,” he says.

“Shindou, just—just stop, okay?” Kiyoharu begs, the words so difficult to dredge up from within him that his voice cracks in the middle. “This is not a good idea. It’s a terrible idea. You’re in frigging Tokyo, okay?”

“Actually,” Shindou says quickly before hesitating. “Um, actually...” he trails off.

Kiyoharu doesn’t dare try to parse that himself in case he ends up reading something ridiculously unrealistic into it. “Actually...?” he prompts.

“Knock knock?” Shindou asks weakly, and then is echoed by two sharp raps on his front door. Kiyoharu looks up reflexively, but of course the closed door reveals nothing.

Kiyoharu lets out a hiccuping laugh before he can catch himself. “Are you—are you serious?”

“Uh, yeah. I thought it—well, you’d already left the hotel by the time I thought to call the front desk and you still weren’t answering my calls so I didn’t really have any way to keep you in Tokyo, so I really only had one option, right?” Shindou asks. “But, um, I can see how that’s maybe kind of crazy, so if you wanna keep the door locked and call the cops, then you can totally do that,” he says, and he definitely sounds embarrassed.

“I’m hanging up,” Kiyoharu says, and snaps shut his phone. He crosses the living room with three long strides and throws the deadbolt before unlocking the door, revealing Shindou Hikaru on his doorstep, of all places.

“Hi,” Kiyoharu says.

“Uh, hi,” Shindou says, biting his lower lip as he shoves his phone in his back pocket.

“Do you wanna come in?” Kiyoharu asks, and the look of pure relief that dawns on Hikaru’s face is every bit as bright as his name.

### 5.

Kiyoharu’s socks don’t match and his hair is ungelled and he’s almost twenty minutes late to his match the next morning but he makes it. His opponent betrays a momentary look of disappointment before politely welcoming him to the game, and despite all that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours, the moment Kiyoharu reaches into the goke for a stone, all of it melts away and leaves only the board before him, and he plays ootakamoku with a clarity of purpose he’d have never guessed he could find again.

* * *

His phone vibrates in his pocket ten minutes before the uchikake. It vibrates a second time and then falls mercifully quiescent.

After his game breaks for lunch, he calls Shindou back. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey!” Shindou says. “Don’t worry; I fixed it.”

“Wait, fixed what?” Kiyoharu asks, alarmed.

“Didn’t you get my voicemail? —Wait, scratch that, nevermind, don’t listen to it, just delete it; everything’s okay,” he says, which is absolutely not reassuring at all. “So hey, you’re at lunch now, right? How’s the game going?”

Kiyoharu takes a quick peek around the room to make sure no one can hear him. “I’m winning,” he admits, letting himself grin just a little bit. “Pretty sure I can keep it that way, too. I’ll replay the game for you when I get home.”

“You sound super hot when you’re gloating,” Shindou says. “Actually, you just sound super hot all of the time. Keep talking; I’m totally getting a boner.”

Kiyoharu almost reaches down to adjust himself before he remembers that even though the room is currently empty, it’s not private by any means, and if someone walks in on him grabbing his junk then he’s never, ever going to shake that reputation and one day he’ll be Yashiro Tengen, Public Masturbator.

“Shindou!” he protests instead.

“Oh man, and now I’m thinking about this morning. And last night. Both times. Oh, and speaking of this morning, you know that thing you were doing with your fingers? So I was thinking I could try that on you tonight with my tongue—” Shindou says, and Kiyoharu absolutely needs to cut off this path of discussion before he gets a hard-on in the middle of the Kansai Ki-in.

“I need to go,” Kiyoharu says, his voice as tight as his pants are suddenly feeling, and when Shindou calls back, he lets it go straight to voicemail.


End file.
